Kraft Inc

The San Francisco attorney who sued Kraft Foods to stop it from selling and marketing Oreo cookies to children in California because they contain artery-clogging trans fats has dropped his lawsuit. But he said Thursday he would take his fight against trans fats to Washington. "This is not abandonment; this is a beginning," said Stephen L. Joseph, a former lobbyist for the energy and aviation industries.

Kraft Foods Inc. said second-quarter profit rose 5.3%, less than its forecast, as sales slowed. Net income increased to $949 million, or 55 cents a share, from $901 million, or 52 cents, a year earlier, the Northfield, Ill.-based company said. Sales rose 4.4% to $7.84 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had expected Kraft to earn 58 cents in the second quarter. Kraft reduced its annual earnings estimate to $2 to $2.05 a share. It had forecast profit of as much as $2.15.

No country in the world today is as ripe for democratic regime change as Iran. Societal discontent with the conservative clerics who rule the country has been building for years and now pervades the society. This broad disaffection has produced splits within the ruling regime. Periodic outbursts of public discontent, like the student protests last month, are putting extreme pressure on the government. The regime's legitimacy is spent. Still, the future is far from certain.

It's enough to make the Cookie Monster cry. Shouts of "Cookies! Cookies!" by the "Sesame Street" TV show character may be falling on deaf ears as concerns over bulging waistlines find more Americans changing lifelong habits and turning their backs on the cookie shelves. Instead, some are heading for more healthful snacks, and that has caught Kraft Foods Inc., the largest U.S. cookie maker with an estimated market share of nearly 40%, off guard.

Call it the Year of the Jumbo. After a year when fledgling companies dominated the market for initial stock sales, 2001 promises a raft of large offerings from household names including Philip Morris Cos.' Kraft Foods Inc. and Verizon Wireless. Jumbo sales of about $50 billion--or half of last year's record proceeds--are in the works, with the bulk comprising telecommunications companies from around the globe looking to raise money for acquisitions, expansion and new technology.

Kraft Foods Inc., the No. 1 U.S. food maker whose products include Oreo cookies, raised $8.68 billion on Tuesday in the second-biggest U.S. initial public stock offering. Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft sold 280 million shares at $31 each, the top of its increased price range, in the largest IPO since AT&T Wireless Group (ticker symbol: AWE) raised $10.6 billion in April 2000.

Lunchables, a package of meat, cheese and crackers sold by the Kraft unit of Philip Morris Cos., contains enough salt to raise blood pressure in certain laboratory rats and may pose a health risk to some humans, a Wisconsin physician said Monday. Lunchables "may be a dangerous snack for families with a history of high blood pressure," Dr. Clarence Grim of the Medical College of Wisconsin said at a news conference at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Anaheim.

The producers of Tombstone Pizza report that sales shoot upward around Halloween, an increase attributed to an advertising and marketing campaign highlighting the brand's unusual name. Kraft Foods said sales of the frozen pizza rose 32% during the last week of October 1996, thanks in part to ads that asked: "What do you want on your Tombstone?" Acceptable answers are pepperoni or extra cheese. Kraft has taken a similar advertising approach this year.

Taco Bell Corp. said Thursday that it has agreed to sell its growing line of grocery products--including dinner entrees, sauces and dips--to Kraft Foods Inc., the nation's largest packaged foods company. Neither Taco Bell nor Kraft, based in Northfield, Ill., would release a sales price. The Irvine operator of Mexican-style fast-food restaurants said that the grocery line it started three years ago generates $50 million in annual sales.